I'm glad the word is getting out about this. Google's abuse of content creators on AdSense has been going on since before they acquired YouTube. As usual, the only way to make any headway with them is to get some media attention.
For anyone considering anything resembling a professional relationship with Google (i.e. you are relying on them for income), make absolutely sure that you have real alternatives that you can move to if/when they screw you. You might think "I'm totally above board here, and have no intention of violating their TOS, so I won't ever have a problem", and you would be wrong. It isn't under your control, so you need to make sure you have a backup plan.
In fact, ideally you need to already have non-Google sources of revenue, so that if Google drops you, you aren't left high and dry until you can switch to something else.
This applies to more than just Google. Your income should not solely depend on one party, unless you're in an employment relationship with them, which carries with it various sorts of legal and social obligations that are a lot harder to simply end on a whim.
Does your revenue depend entirely on being in Apple's good graces, and being dropped from the App Store would end it? Does it depend solely on Google's advertising money? Or even if not solely, if 75% of your revenue comes from one source, it will be game changing if you lose that.
This is why monopolies are a bad idea, and duopolies aren't much better. A healthy market will have at least three viable players, with none controlling over 50% of the market, allowing you to diversify and be save from any one of them deciding not to play.
Problem is that in some markets (e.g games) you can't really help but be beholden to some large publisher. Whether it be Apple, Steam or MS. You can hedge your risk a little by releasing across multiple platforms but then there is still the risk that one platform in particular accounts for 50%+ of your sales and you could lose that at the drop of a hat.
No. It's an argument against having all of your income based on an iPhone app. Now, sure, you might start out on the iPhone; but rather than focusing all of your effort there, once you've got some traction, it might be good to work on porting it to Android, and possibly Windows Phone or Blackberry. Of course, even there, it's mostly a duopoly; I don't think that Windows Phone or Blackberry are really viable platforms at this point, so you are going to have to deal with the duopoly nature of the business for now.
>Your income should not solely depend on one party
The networking effect is naturally monopolistic.
There aren't any practical alternatives to facebook and youtube. Being kicked from either would be disastrous and neither has to offer an alternate ad network or even need a good reason to get rid of you.
I imagine a simple mediation or ombudsman process is all these companies need, but they have no incentive to really make that work. They're still making money hand over fist.
From a regulator perspective, these are major issues, especially since we've officially entered the age of the walled garden/centralized store. I don't think this is the kind of thing the free market will magically be able to fix if we sit and our hands and wait. I imagine its going to get worse once MS and other big players start making it much more difficult or impossible to install unsigned software or software from outside their store.
I think if you have a large youtube audience who's loyalty you depend on it would be wise to also have an external website (even a crappy 1 page thing) and link to that in every video.
That way even if your videos are deleted you can stick them up somewhere else and link from your site and hopefully at least some of your followers will have bookmarked it.
When I was 14 I made a flash games/funny videos website, and used AdSense as my only income. I learnt a lot about driving traffic and things just started to pick up - and then I was banned.
It later came to my attention that a few friends and (at the time) girlfriend had taken it upon themselves to 'help' me by clicking an ad once a day. Annoying, since I was making about $10 a day from ads. I didn't need help. $10 a day was great for a 14 year old.
That was nearly eight years ago. I recently contacted Google about it, and was completely ignored. I understand why, it makes sense for them to protect their business - but it's annoying none the less. I could think of good uses for AdSense right now.
With all due respect, and I agree that it wasn't your "fault", but your friends were engaging in click fraud, and you admit as much. (I'm not completely sure I'd believe they were doing it just "once" a day, but that's between you guys). What should the response to click fraud be for a $10/day account? They simply can't afford to dedicate a human being to something that small.
Oh, I absolutely agree. What my friends did was wrong, and I fully respect why Google did what they did, I would not have done anything different if I was them.
My point is more that it's interesting how easy it is to use this as a DDOS type tactic and it's a shame they don't have better appeal system in place. These days I am sure I could contribute to the AdSense ecosystem in a substantially more positive way.
I have nearly the same story as well. (Even contacting Google about it some months ago, they rejected the appeal and you only get one.) It sucks, but whatever I guess, just means I gotta make money with one of the tons of other ways to make money...
If you think about it from Google's perspective, its working like its supposed to.
Overzealous fans going on click-fests are a problem for Google's customers (the advertisers). Automatically banning that account and showing those ads elsewhere completely solves that problem. Simple load-balancing at work. What more do they need to do?
That's what I was thinking reading this. Whether it is due to "overzealous fans" or not, click fraud is click fraud. Google (really any advertising broker) can't make a business out of selling fake "clicks", they have to sell views by real users. There has to be a solution to prevent these clicks from registering, and they picked the easy one.
This is true, the attitude of 'click a few times to send some money' (which really is sending the advertisers money) is always a bad idea. And as long as you realize the advertiser is the customer and the guy uploading videos is the product, well you don't leave a bad carton of milk on the shelf do you?
Its a sad way to treat the content producers. From the big picture however the 'bad actors' figured out that there was a 'hole' in the AdSense cover which you could pull millions out of, it was create a bunch of AdSense accounts in a bunch of accounts and distribute clicks through them. Reasonably easy to automate and provided a good return on the investment.
So independent video producer with a modest stream? Or part of a clickfraud ring? Hard to tell apart. But the customers really hate seeing a bunch of clicks that don't result in any conversions.
The solution will end up with advertisers paying less per click (we're already seeing that in Google's reports) and/or switching to a per-impression model, or on the outside chance a flat fee over time model which is analogous to the magazine model.
The problem is the wrong person is punished, and the content creator has no recourse, and it nets out worse for everyone. Somebody who used to be rewarded for producing good content no longer is so they stop. Google's content gets worse, advertisers venue for selling their ads gets worse, consumers have less good content to watch. Nobody wins.
Would you want me to be able to shut down your business with a relatively simple action for me to take, without you being able to take any recourse, without you even having any relationship with me? It has terrible externalities with seemingly innocent actors, imagine what could be achieved with a bit of malice, as you will find among competitors.
It might be more of a supply and demand thing. Google thinks it has an endless supply of small bit-players willing to supply content so it doesn't value any of them. They might be right.
It really hasn't cost them anything so they haven't spent anything trying to fix it.
I think the fact that anyone can get anyone else's adsense account banned by clicking their ads everyday means it's not really working the way it should.
Competitors can just kill each other's revenue sources.
But, I'm guessing the really big channels will get protection from that, while the small guys would get banned.
Because they never want to have to deal with the potential problem ever again. They want to move forward and creating a machine moving forward with all the ducks in a row is better than constantly re-evaluating the potential fraudsters -- however small that potential may be.
Remember, in this case, Google is the customer and the content provider is the vendor. Google has decided not to be those vendor's customer anymore.
This seems like a great way to seriously injure a competitor's ability to conduct business. In a sense, it could be used for a denial of service attack.
Indeed. Mass click fraud (and you don't even need to enlist the services of a botnet; there are Asian companies that will do this for you at a flat rate), YouTube shenanigans such as mass flagging or fake DMCAs (resulting in videos being pulled for significant lengths of time).
That's one of Google's primary problems and it will only get worse with popularity - they need better CS.
So basically Google has enabled trolls/people with bad intentions to destroy someone's cash flow. This seems ridiculous! That's the one thing I hate about Google...their lack of customer service. Regardless if their service is free, they are making more than enough money to set up a call center or something.
You'd think if they could identify 'suspicious' clicks, they could just ignore them: don't hold the impressions/clicks against the ad-buyer, don't reward the ad-bearing site operator. Problem solved.
If it's an honest misunderstanding: no harm done.
If it's a money-making scheme: they'll give up and go elsewhere, guaranteed.
If it's possible to get banned from using adsense just by few persons questionable actions, and if google is too big to answer properly but not that big enough to skip watching even the tiniest "fraudilent" actions, then be it and become big enough to get google's attention by reaching out others in the same position.
These stories are getting tired. Google is too big to investigate every single exception to their machine rules. We know. We get it. When you have 100 accounts, you can devote time to every exception. When you have 100,000,000 accounts you can't. You have to automate it and with 100,000,000 accounts there are going to be a lot of exceptions to the rules. Even a failure rate of 0.0001% would be enough to fill that cheap blog poach, I mean post, with examples of failures -- some of which were actually successes.
Even at that rate, youtube/google implemented an automated success rate of 99.9999%. Let's get some articles about how they accomplished that. That'd be more interesting than this sensationalist drivel.
These aren't people who are using a free email service, they are people who are directly generating your company revenue. In many cases a meaningful amount of revenue (Google keeps ~30% so if someone is generating just $1,000 a month that's $3,600 a year directly for Google).
If there is ever a case worthy of using company resources, it's for activities that directly affect its bottom line. Google seems to have bad support for both AdSense and AdWords and it's not because they don't have the resources, it's because they so far have not had to. Competition is what will solve Google's people problem.
I have generated Google a lot of revenue through AdSense over the years and I still live in fear of being cut off and not having any recourse. Yes, I have other revenue streams, but it would be a huge loss that's hard to fill. With any other company I would be confident that they would want the [significant] revenue and would at least work with me, but not Google.
So then why don't you build your own content delivery system and advertising network and create a marketplace with enough advertisers to bring you the same level of income?
If not for Google, you may not have a dime of that money you've earned. I mean, maybe not, right? If so, then you'd have to have gotten that money through someone else doing what Google is doing right? Why not just switch to them if Google does you dirty?
The underlying point here is that you are not Google's customer -- the advertiser is -- and it's in your, Google's, and the advertiser's best interest to treat the advertiser better than they treat you. Otherwise, the customer is going to go to another network that doesn't let fraudsters game them out of click fees.
How many articles have we seen about Facebook doing exactly that? That's much worse IMO. If I'm giving you money, you better be taking it legitimately. If I'm taking your money, the onus is on me to prove I have taken it honestly. If not, I'd totally expect Google to keep the money -- and they don't keep the money -- they give it back to the advertiser or never charge them to begin with.
If you or the other people around here were to keep the money an advertiser gave you and then complained about being fraudulent -- even if it wasn't -- then you'd soon be faced with tons of articles saying "They kept my money even though bots were clicking!!"
And you'd soon be out of business because no one would give you any money.
Google is making the right decisions here. Face it.
Yikes, not sure what I did to set that off. I'm not angry at Google, I'm just stating the fact that as someone who does business with Google I am constantly aware that our arrangement could be gone at any moment at no-fault of my own and without any recourse.
> If not for Google, you may not have a dime of that money you've earned. I mean, maybe not, right? If so, then you'd have to have gotten that money through someone else doing what Google is doing right? Why not just switch to them if Google does you dirty?
And likewise, Google wouldn't have had their cut for that money either. As best as I can tell it's a mutually beneficial relationship, but Google's lack of transparency does shift the balance (while I can yank all my inventory, that only works going forwards, Google can unilaterally decide to not pay you for what they have already taken).
> How many articles have we seen about Facebook doing exactly that? That's much worse IMO. If I'm giving you money, you better be taking it legitimately. If I'm taking your money, the onus is on me to prove I have taken it honestly. If not, I'd totally expect Google to keep the money -- and they don't keep the money -- they give it back to the advertiser or never charge them to begin with.
All of the tools, methods and results of legitimacy are stacked on Google's side and are kept completely secret. If their secret sauce decides to boot you, they don't even let you know what happened, which is especially rich. The same applies to AdWords, Google hosts an auction but keeps everyone in the dark and asks for their trust. Advertisers don't have any say in click fraud either, it's all left to the secret black box.
It's a pretty ridiculous thing on its face. Imagine an employeer takes you into the conference room in the middle of the month and states that they're not happy with something (but won't say what) and that they're going to have to take your past three pay checks and send you on your way. Frustrating to say the least.
I think years and years of people focusing on the tiny percentage of people who are wrongly accused by the googleplex is what set me off.
Everyone knows. It's boring. Get over it. It's exactly the way it is supposed to be and there is no better way. All the proposals to get a human involved slow everything down and Google would never have gotten to where they are if they had people wasting their time on every case that cried about being an exception to the rule -- especially since even those who cry about being the exception really aren't the exception.
It's a waste of time and these blog posts are a waste of time and here I am wasting more time.
> Everyone knows. It's boring. Get over it. It's exactly the way it is supposed to be an there is no better way. All the proposals to get a human involved slow everything down and Google would never have gotten to where they are if they had people wasting their time on every case that cried about being an exception to the rule -- especially since even those who cry about being the exception really aren't the exception.
There is a better way, but it's against Google's ethos to not use engineering to solve a problem. That itself is the problem this thread is speaking to. Algorithms are great, except when they're not. Most companies have a way to deal with that, but Google makes it a point of pride to not.
Other fraud systems are not completely controlled by an algorithm. Imagine if Visa banned you from ever being able to accept Visa without an appeals process or even providing any information about what you did wrong? If Visa detects a pattern of fraud they open an investigation and the merchant is a part of this process. It's slow and expensive, but also necessary and has not prevented credit card companies to operate at huge scale.
They disable ad serving in absolutely legitimate AdSense accounts bringing over $10,000 per month just as easily (this has happened to us); without any real possibility for a recourse. These posts are important for any founder or webmaster so they realize the grave inherent risks to their business if they plan to monetize only via AdSense.
The real problem is that there are little if any ways to get your account reinstated. Sure, they have to rely on automation... but if people are banned automagically then people need to be able to appeal it and have an actual human being look into it.
Absolutely, there should be a full blown appeal process. There are a few items in place but in the cases of several YouTubers I have tried to help through this process they often don't result in any additional clarity or reversal.
Are they too big to provide some basic customer support and an escalation path? Interestingly enough, if they did this, we wouldn't be seeing their .0001% failures either.
They do provide that. That's why accounts were suddenly re-enabled.
The advertisers are the customers and customers want to know they are paying for clicks from valid opportunities. Google is handling the customer appropriately by banning those that are committing fraud. If you're my sales guy and you defraud my customers I'm going to fire you too.
The dozens of HC comments to the opposite aside, here's a quote that sums it up from the original article:
> "It is not possible to directly contact Google," he said. "No one will speak with you, and there are no other avenues unless you are friends with someone who works there. Once your appeal is rejected, they will not reply to your emails or speak with you further on the issue (they actually tell you that in the rejection letter). It is essentially a LIFETIME ban for your account. Seems fair, right?"
His account was reinstated due to the press coverage, just as many HNers get their accounts back due to the many Googlers who frequent here.
That's not what I would define as customer service.
They do provide a very minimal set of resources in that regard, but I doubt it is anything more than someone giving a cursory glance to your appeal and checking some boxes that amount to "should we even care?".
But it is seriously damaging to their company and there are other things they could do:
If they notice apparent click-fraud, they should suspend payments and notify the account holders. If the fraud continues (either this one issue or if it repeats regularly)[1], shut them down.
Like it or not, Google (and others like eBay) have put themselves in the position of supplying people's livelihood. There needs to be more respect for that fact. They've shown that they believe their algorithms can be wrong by reinstating people's accounts when stupid crap like this hits, but I contend that is not good enough. Crap like this should just not be hitting.
They can have automated systems and reasonable algorithms at the same time.
1. Some will probably say this gives fraudsters more chances to learn Google's algorithms. How hard is it to create a new account?
I would say that statistic is entirely flawed, since we're not only talking about Partner accounts which are far, far less in number than the 100,000,000 figure cited, but the likely minuscule percentage of them actually generating any substantial revenue.
Probably because I made it up. Look, the post had what, 4 very one-sided arguments from people whose credibility is unknown claiming they are honest and Google is cheating them out of money and a couple more who weren't even smart enough to realize they in fact were the very kind of fraudsters Google's algorithms are designed to catch.
Even if it's 99% finding a person to employ who would make fewer mistakes would be a stellar employee -- good luck. Even if you could, at that scale there'd be a tiny fraction of people who actually made money.
How many of the cases of "OMG, Google is shutting me down!" have legitimate grievances? Maybe a tiny fraction? How many of those are "worth" investigating? Even smaller fraction. Heck, those complainers on that guy's blog could have been making $4 a month, who knows. All this has been a complete waste of time. Let's talk about something important.
I'm usually not one to defend Google, but in this case, they are behaving exactly perfectly.
The only way to get unbanned is to get noticed by a human at Google - through a non-Google channel, because Google channels are specifically designed never to bother humans.
Google channels are specifically designed never to bother humans
This is not really true; Google does answer customer support queries for products that have customer support. Google Wallet and Google Apps are two products with dedicated 24/7 phone support.
There are plenty of channels for customers. If you're a customer. None of these people are customers. Google is their customer and Google is saying they don't want to be their customer anymore because Google doesn't trust them.
Content providers are not the customer. Google is the customer and the content provider is the vendor. Google can make whatever decisions Google wants to make about who they give money too.
If a customer decides to stop being your customer -- for whatever reason -- they are entirely entitled to do that and you are not entitled to their money.
There's no reason why customer support can't scale. That's just another kind of scaling problem. I think the explanation is actually that it's too expensive and Google has done quite well not offering that level of service.
i suffered this several years ago. even had a good friend explore, in person, the team who banned me. no movement, no appeal.
my adsense account still shows hundreds of dollars to pay out that they wont. sadly no other easy to launch-with ad tool (e.g. yahoo) for a regular home user with a site can yield much money. they really have a monopoly, and this behavior just screws people.
I'm hoping the staggering lack of concern for proper customer service for any of their products will someday start to affect their bottom line.
These stories are not new and seem to be adding up. I'm still confused why they haven't invested in a call center or some type of dedicated customer service for the products they support.
margins. it doesn't affect them yet so why invest the cost? in fact it will always benefit them until /advertisers/ pull their participation, and they have them covered.
you, as the small person showing ads, are so insignificant that they wont listen to these complaints.
For anyone considering anything resembling a professional relationship with Google (i.e. you are relying on them for income), make absolutely sure that you have real alternatives that you can move to if/when they screw you. You might think "I'm totally above board here, and have no intention of violating their TOS, so I won't ever have a problem", and you would be wrong. It isn't under your control, so you need to make sure you have a backup plan.
In fact, ideally you need to already have non-Google sources of revenue, so that if Google drops you, you aren't left high and dry until you can switch to something else.